


Ebb Tide

by ectoPaleontologist



Category: Jurassic Park - All Media Types, Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies), Jurassic World Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Animal Attack, Animal Death, Based on concept art for a scrapped opening scene for Fallen Kingdom, Canon Compliant, Cosmic Punishment, Dinosaurs, Gen, Horror, Ocean, One Shot, Science Fiction, Survival Horror, Technically the Mosasaur is more closely related to Monitor Lizards than Dinosaurs but I need CLICKS, Thriller, thalassophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 19:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20431460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectoPaleontologist/pseuds/ectoPaleontologist
Summary: “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.” - Rachel CarsonInspired by the ending of Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom and the upcoming Battle at Big Rock, here's another one-shot examining exactly what happens when Pandora's Box is opened and unleashed upon the world. Based on concept art for a scrapped alternate opening scene for Fallen Kingdom, a lone ship finds itself alone among the waves, waves that hold more than they let on.





	Ebb Tide

The horizon had been swallowed up by ever-shifting mountain ranges of dark teal waves frothing with white foam lace, beyond that obscured by impenetrable fog that stole away the afternoon sky, leaving the Yushin Maru a lone, small shape among a furious, choppy sea and hazy, gray void. The vessel, a little over 200 feet in length and barely 40 feet in height, was rocked from side to side and bucked back and forth by the powerful waves, with the barrel crow’s nest starting to resemble the needle of a metronome. Still, it persisted, crashing through the towering peaks of waves with little care, the crew on deck thrown against railings and knocked off their feet by a constant barrage of heavy ocean spray. Nevertheless, the Yushin Maru continued through the punishing sea. It was in pursuit after all.

  
Shiro Watanabe stood at the bow, keeping a white-knuckled grip on the rails beside him, though in all honesty the frigid waves and whipping winds had stolen all the feeling from his hands by this point. His orange raincoat had failed to protect him, soaking him to the bones and leaving his miserable flesh shivering. Still, he smiled. He saw the dark shape just barely a couple dozen yards up ahead off the ship’s starboard side. Just below the surface of the waves was a long, streamlined figure, totalling a little over 40 feet in length. To Watanabe’s experienced eyes, this was no doubt their target: a fin whale, likely a sub-adult, separated from the rest of its pod.

  
Watanabe called out over the roaring waves, beckoning towards the helmsman in the upper bridge to bring them closer. He blinked the persistent ocean spray out of his eyes as he readied the harpoon gun before him, a massive steel ballista bolted down into the deck of the ship. Closer the ship drew in, closer the ravenous barbed spear drew to its ripe target, closer the whale drew to its destined fate. From the frothing white sea foam, the animal’s smooth, gray hide breached the surface, its characteristic dorsal fin slicing through the waves.

  
Bingo.

  
With a jolt the harpoon fired, high-tension steel cable trailing behind it with a high-pitched whir. As soon as it buried itself into the animal’s hide, the water around it was dyed a dark maroon, the foam now a visceral pink. The steel cable stretched taut as the whale tried to escape, but it was no use. The motorized winch started to pull back on the cable as the ship drew closer, the whale dragged against its will towards the ships hull, its snout trailing just behind the tip of the ship’s bow, cable still taut. It writhed in desperation, its fluke thrashing against the surface of the water. This was a familiar sight for Watanabe, practically clockwork at this point.

  
He turned and called out to one of the crewmen, a young man by the name of Yoshihiro, a new arrival still wet behind the ears but he learned fast and showed promise. Yoshihiro unsteadily trotted across the catwalk connecting the upturned, horn-like bow to the upper bridge, essentially a narrow, railed bridge over the low, sweeping deck far below. In his hands he carried a rifle, on his face the same look of nervousness that all new crewmen always had when this part came. He stopped at the end of the catwalk, nodded at Watanabe solemnly, and took aim. Despite being such a massive target, the heavy rocking of the ship and Yoshihiro’s shakiness made each shot sloppy and imprecise, not to mention that it would take numerous shots just to kill the thing. It took thirteen rounds for the whale to stop moving, dark maroon waves splashing against the ship’s hull. The rest of the crew on deck cheered, Watanabe giving Yoshihiro a proud nod as Yoshihiro have a weak smile in return.

  
The cheering came to an abrupt end when something breached the surface, a massive shape leaping out of the water with the whale in its jaws, crashing down off the starboard side of the ship with a colossal splash. Before Watanabe could react, a sharp metal twang rang out with a burning pain cutting across his shoulder. He recoiled against the railing, wincing in pain and clutching his shoulder. He withdrew his hand only to find it smeared with his own blood. Watanabe realized the harpoon’s steel cable had snapped from the tension and had whipped him on its way into the water. He cursed under his breath and looked back towards the other crewmen. To his horror Yoshihiro was slumped over the catwalk railing, clutching what appeared to be a deep gash over his chest.

  
Watanabe staggered over to him, and as he drew closer he realized how severe the damage was. Beneath his torn bright orange raincoat was a sharp, narrow gash a few inches deep oozing heavily with blood. Watanabe thought he could make out the shape of the kid’s ribs. He waved his arms frantically at the crew in the bridge, shouting as loud as he could over the roaring waves. Four men hurried towards them, making their way across the deck as fast as they could. Watanabe tried to reassure Yoshihiro, but he knew the odds weren’t good. He tried to keep him talking, keep him conscious, but something drew his attention out of the corner of his eye. He shot his head starboard where he could make out a massive fluked tail snaking its way below the waves before disappearing. The scale of the thing was massive, much larger than the whale they just killed. What the hell was this thing?

  
He pushed the thought of it out of mind as he waited for the other crewmen to arrive. He started to feel nauseous with the sight of so much blood and the ship’s severe rocking. It almost looked like the entire ocean was rising up to swallow the ship whole before sinking and doing so again on the other side. A mountain of a wave spilled onto the deck from portside, crashing down upon the catwalk and shoving Watanabe against the railing. He blinked away seawater and gasped for air. When he opened his eyes, Yoshihiro was gone. He looked around frantically, but he was nowhere to be seen. The other crewmen arrived, baffled until one of them pointed just off portside. Yoshihiro was in the water.

  
He was up to his chest in the water, bobbing in the waves and gasping for breath, his arm weakly reaching for the ship as the other tried to keep him afloat. Another massive wave poured over him followed by yet another, each one seemingly sapping what little vitality he had left. The other crewmen were hurriedly gathering ropes and lifesavers to pull him up, with more rushing out on deck to help, but Watanabe could tell that they were already too late. He saw a dark shape approaching him slowly, much larger than any whale he had killed before. It was well over 60 feet in length — hell, it was most likely over 80. Silently, it drifted towards him. The crew saw it too, now calling out to him frantically, throwing over several ropes and lifesavers. Yoshihiro hoisted an arm around a nearby lifesaver, all the crewmen on the catwalk and even an injured Watanabe pulling with all their might to bring him back aboard. The dark shape disappeared. They had to be in the clear now. The waves were working in their favor, pushing Yoshihiro back towards the ship, as if they wanted to save him too. He was only a few yards away from the ship now, crewmen gathering on the shallow deck below ready to hoist him up.

  
The ocean beneath Yoshihiro swelled and rose, and from it the dark shape emerged, breaching the surface with its massive jaws wide open and Yoshihiro right between them. Its face was vaguely crocodilian, with a massive head ending into a narrow snout, rows of pointed teeth lining its gaping maw, and a cold, beady amber eye with a tiny black pupil beneath a thick brow ridge running along its snout. Watanabe saw Yoshihiro’s face, a mix of shock and defeat, frozen as time almost slowed to an agonizing standstill before the jaws snapped shut with him inside. Slowly, the animal flopped back into the water with an enormous splash, its fluked tail trailing behind it as it sunk below the waves. Watanabe and the rest of the crew stood there frozen, with the now limp rope in their hands. Yoshihiro was dead.

  
None of the crewmen knew what to do. All of them stood where they were, letting the waves batter them as they struggled to process what had happened. This was no whale, this was no shark, this was no animal they had ever dealt with before. None of them knew its name, but they had seen pictures of it, videos of it, billboards of it, all around for years now until recently. This was an animal from another world, one that was completely unknown to them, one once swallowed up by deep time and now thrown back in the mix with them, an alien from a world long lost. It was a mosasaur.

  
The mosasaur let out a haunting, guttural bellow that trailed up to the surface, calling out over the crashing waves. Snapped back to reality, the crewmen looked at each other with looks of horror settling upon their faces. Watanabe could feel his hands trembling, and it wasn’t from the cold. The crewmen started to make a dash off the deck, back towards cover, but by the time they turned to run, the mosasaur had breached the water again, this time, leaping towards the catwalk with jaws agape.

  
Its jaws clamped down on the catwalk, crushing it and the two men directly in the mosasaur’s trajectory with great ease. The catwalk groaned and buckled, tearing away and letting the front half of the mosasaur’s body collapse onto the deck, right onto four hapless crewmen. All Watanabe could do was watch, clutching the railing as he fell to his knees, just feet away from where the rest of the catwalk used to be. Hungrily, the mosasaur clamped down on the wreckage of the tiny structure, adjusting its grip as a couple of limbs could be seen poking out from the twisted metal, twitching until soon falling limp. Its flippers slapped against the deck almost innocently as it shook its head, tossing the catwalk aside and off the other side of the ship into the waves. It looked around the deck of the ship, mildly perplexed as to its new surroundings.

  
A man’s screaming caught Watanabe’s and the mosasaur’s attention. Watanabe looked up to see another crewman clinging on to dear life on what remained of the railing on the other side of the ruined catwalk, his legs kicking in the air as he struggled to pull himself back up. The mosasaur looked up curiously at him before snapping its jaws in the man’s direction, the crewman just out of reach. Watanabe could only shake his head and bear through a renewed wave of nausea as he listened to the man’s desperate sobs. With the rocking of the ship and the constant layer of water coating every surface in sight, it should have been no surprise that he would lose his grip, though Watanabe kept hoping that he would somehow climb his way back up. Inevitably, the man fell to the deck below, landing hard on his side just before the mosasaur’s snout. As if watching a car accident unfold in slow motion, Watanabe couldn’t look away, watching with a sense of defeated passiveness as the animal bit down on his legs, though a bit too hard as the man yowled in pain and withdrew them, revealing two fresh bloody stumps where his limbs once were. The rocking of the ship and the traitorous waves nudged the crewman towards the mosasaur’s open maw, his sobbing almost grating to listen to now. The mosasaur bit down on his thighs now, raising its massive head and snapping him up, pulling him deeper between its jaws, the man weakly pounding on its snout, but to no avail.

  
Watanabe noticed a small, dark shape lying on the catwalk next to him: the rifle. He looked over to the sobbing crewman in the mosasaur’s jaws and then to the gun again. With great hesitation, he picked it up and aimed as best as he could with a breath as shaky as his was right now. He clenched his eyes shut, drew in a sharp breath, and pulled the trigger.

  
Click.

  
His eyes shot open. The gun was empty. There were no bullets left whatsoever. He let hot tears well up and stream down his face as he lowered the gun, the crewman’s head no longer in its sights. Watanabe threw the gun down and pressed his palms hard against his eyes. The mosasaur had the man completely within its jaws now, clamping them shut and bringing the man’s sobs, prayers, and screams to an abrupt end. It raised its head and swallowed once. It let an especially large wave wash over its body, slowly slinking itself back into the ocean, leaving a trail of blood and crushed bodies in bright orange raincoats in its wake. It let out another low, haunting bellow as its shadowy form was lost under the cover of the waves, leaving Watanabe kneeling on what remained of the catwalk, letting the rocking of the ocean sway his body from side to side.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this piece! This is probably the shortest thing I've written (including my WIPs) but one of my darkest and more shocking. I wrote this one trying to balance the ideas of human insignificance in relation to nature and cosmic punishment, as Jurassic tends to emphasize these kinds of themes. After seeing the Mosasaur in Jurassic World the Ride, I felt awed and humbled, now compelled to write a piece about her, though this one is less one of wonder and more one of horror. I'm working on other stories right now, some long and some short, but I feel like these little one-shots might become a series. I'm already brainstorming more ideas, but I'm open to suggestions for what you want to see next!


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